A Room on the Wall
What space in your life, in your home, your schedule or your heart, have you set aside for God to come and stay, and what would it mean if he actually did?
“Please let us make a little room on the roof. Let us set for him there a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp stand. When he comes to us, he can stay there.”2 Kings 4:10
The town of Shunem sat on the edge of the Jezreel Valley, along a route the prophet Elisha traveled often. The writer calls the woman who lived there "a great woman," which probably means she was wealthy and well-regarded. At first she simply urged Elisha to stop and eat whenever he passed. Then she went further. She said to her husband, "Please let's make a little room on the roof. Let's set a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp stand for him there." Houses in ancient Israel had flat roofs that served as working and living space, and the Hebrew suggests a small walled room, something built to last, not a tent or a shelter thrown up for one night. She furnished it with four ordinary things: a place to rest, a place to eat, a place to sit, and a light to see by. It was not a shrine. It was a room someone could live in.
Notice what she did not ask for. When Elisha later offered to speak to the king or the army commander on her behalf, she answered, "I dwell among my own people." She had not built the room to get something. Yet God met her open door with his own kindness: a son, given to a woman who had stopped hoping for one. And when that boy later died in her arms, she carried him up the stairs and laid him on the prophet's bed, in the very room she had built. The place she made for God's presence became the place where God gave her son back to her. The word itself doesn't appear in this story, but it carries the shape of what the Old Testament calls hesed, a loyal, faithful kindness. God is not a guest who forgets the people who made room for him.
Most of us have plenty of rooms, and most of them are full. Our calendars are booked, our phones are loud, and even our spiritual lives can become a kind of storage closet: a little Scripture here, a quick prayer there, things we keep because we think we should. The Shunammite woman's room presses a quiet question on us. Is there anywhere in our lives that is truly furnished for God to stay, not just visit? She did not build a monument. She built a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp, the plain furniture of daily life. Maybe making room for God looks less like a grand gesture and more like a steady, ordinary welcome. And perhaps the most surprising part of her story is that the room she built in good times was waiting for her on the worst day of her life. We rarely know which of our quiet, faithful habits will become the place where we meet him when everything falls apart.
Picture the four pieces of furniture in that little room: bed, table, chair, lamp. Which one describes something you already give to God, and which one feels missing? Write about what it would mean for God to stay, not just pass through.
Lord, you have made room for us in your house, and you never forget those who welcome you. Forgive us for the times we keep you at the door while we fill every room with other things. Give us the plain, steady faith of the woman of Shunem, a welcome built to last. And when hard days come, meet us in the places we made for you, with the same faithful kindness you showed her. Amen.